“Germany is about to have the third largest defence budget in the world, behind only the US and China.”
I admit I’m cynical but I say let’s wait and see how much Germany spends on the military over the coming years when the Ukraine crisis has passed.
Why wouldn’t they? No matter what they do now it will be too late for the current crisis in Ukraine. If Putin gets what he wants they might increase their NATO spending a little bit while still buying Russian fossil fuels. On the other hand if this goes poorly for Putin, then they might claim there was little reason to increase their spending and start focusing on ways to meet their energy goals. Bottom line, they would be stupid to commit one way or another right now.
I’ve heard from German acquaintances that they feel there has been a revolution in German thinking and policy that is very widely felt.
R Wright
2 years ago
“During my lifetime at least, the Germans have been the conscience of Europe, responding to their defeat in the war and their national shame with a reinvention of their national consciousness.”
And encouraging millions of economic migrants to the continent on the back of their short sightedness, as one recalls Cologne New Years Eve. Their growing consciousness has been a blight in many ways.
Andrew Fergar
2 years ago
Hi Giles – good piece ..but the hundred million is a one off investment ( as I understand it ) that will bring the German armed forces into some sort of reasonable shape . I am unsure of how quickly this money will be spent and how the cash will be raised . Their target is the 2% of overall spending that we ( amongst a few others ) already meet . I guess that 2% could equal the world’s third largest defence budget , but have my doubts .
BTW we have met in 2007 at Putney church for the debates ( with the THTB )
Chris Wheatley
2 years ago
Militarism-Pacifism-Militarism-Pacifism…….
If somebody physically invades your world you become militarist but, of course, this is justified as defending yourself… “It was self-defence Your Honour.”
If somebody physically invades another world, then you can smile and claim Pacifism.
I have a cunning plan to remove all Pacifists. Show propaganda films of the Ukranians killing and eating their pet dogs in order to survive.
Last edited 2 years ago by Chris Wheatley
Simon Diggins
2 years ago
Good article but one slight correction. At the end of the Cold War, the Bundeswehr was anything but small: 500k under arms; 12 divisions and 000s of armoured vehicles, and a very competent territorial defence organisation to organise everything from refugees to destruction of infrastructure that might assist the Soviets.
The issue is that the peace dividend the Germans awarded themselves effectively neutered themselves and left them with little choice but to be ‘peaceful’.
As for 99 Red Balloons, the 1984 hit song, there is a line that goes, “The war machine springs to life. The President is on the line, as 99 red balloons go by” – I’m pretty sure.
Looks like the Chancellor is on the line, now.
When the film, of the fictional book by Frederick Forsyth, The Odessa File was showing in cinemas in 1974, it must have given a push in the minds of the audiences in Britain and America to do with the reality of reflection and reconsideration of WW2 that was taking place in West Germany, among ordinary Germans, in the 1960s (when the film was set) and into the 70s. The British-made film, if shown in West Germany at the time, may have heartened some Germans who felt that the world beyond now knows that good Germans, a new post-war generation, are in abundance and attempting to run things; have neither turned away from unresolved injustices nor neglected responsibilities to do with the legacy of the war. The Odessa File film showed that redemption, if not forgiveness, was very possible. It was just a film. Nevertheless, it was a glimpse, albeit an imagined one, at post-war West Germany (where on-location scenes were shot). Most people in Britain would not have got any other glimpse of Germany, in colour, even on television, in 1974. Three TV channels then, eh? (In the 80s would come, filmed in Germany, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet). The World At War TV series was being broadcast at that time. And the candid interviews with the participants, in colour, were … necessary for the watching nation. Nothing less than necessary!
It’s just that in the old days, when shown on TV a few years later, people watched The Odessa File. It’s a good, exciting movie. Nowadays, the weight of youth don’t watch TV. They watch snippets designed for dunces, and look up naasti torch-lit parades, from the 1930s, in colour, in the palm of their hand. The only chancellor of Germany before Merkel whom this youth I imagine can name is … that boss of Goering, Goebbels and co. They know nothing of the time in between. Nor of the good works of Adenauer, Brandt, Schmidt, Kohl. It’s silly technology and ridiculously tiny tyrannical screens that have probably re-ignited the recent howls by Germans to “do something” to atone for their past. Technology has given youth the worm-like vision of really only seeing the Germany of today and “Germany’s past”: as if its past can only be the period from 1933-45. But in some ways, it’s in part cosmetic, even in Germany, the recent programmes of atonement. The memorials to the Jews of Germany are respectful, poignant, and necessary – but inanimate. What of lively debate? Generally, in mainstream media, in Germany? Like everywhere else in the West, a grounded, candid language to do with actual events, often still within living memory, is dampened down by the overpowering sense of political correctness. The complaints and insensitivities industries are in full swing, aided and abetted by technology, of course. Any candid interviews today with the aged participants of the war are over after a few spoken sentences, and it’s then straight on to the sports or entertainment news, in case anyone should have noticed. In the blizzard of information, the grounded, real past is cast aside or rendered invisible. The memorials that are placed take on a little more tokenistic feel in our modern, unfeeling universe today. Even any recent movies made to do with the war, having been made anywhere in Europe, also take on that tokenistic feel. Unlike yesteryear, your neighbour knows nothing of it. And he or she has probably zero interest in it!
I don’t like the idea of an EU Army. It sounds like one big main army and all its auxiliaries from round and about. It’s good Germany is, however, able to begin to imagine having a better sense of its own security without feeling guilty about it. Like so many young Germans into music in the 70s and 80s, Germans need to look to the future. Right now now, that’s tricky. Maybe the young hip but serious Germans advancing themselves in the 2020s have never heard of 99 Luftballons. We need the 80s back!
Oh yeah, there was that TV show, Deutschland ‘83. Maybe a sign. But the politically correct posturing in the West has gotta go. God has forgiven us our sins already. Nobody believes so, …sigh.
The modern teaching of history in English schools (I can’t speak for Welsh and Scottish schools but I can guess) is WOEFUL. Sorry for shouting but it upsets me very much.
Nic Thorne
2 years ago
Knowing Germany today, I feel the new defence budget is simply as it should be.
Stephan Quentin
2 years ago
Germany was allowed „a small army after the war“? Under NATO agreements Germany had to maintain a standing army of 500.000 soldiers. The German army is small now, but was not back then.
Correct. The German army had as its core 10 armoured divisions fielding 4500 Leopard 1 and 2 main battle tanks, the linchpin of NATO’s ground forces.
Martin Bollis
2 years ago
My boss at the time of German reunification was German. He was a very thoughtful man and surprised me by saying something along the lines of “Europe will regret this one day, Germany needs to be kept weak.”
It’s stuck with me. Clearly right now Germany needs to stand up, but there is a part of the German psyche that takes itself very seriously. Would a Germany, capable and willing to be a serious world military player, be a force for good?
I tend to agree. Germany has always produced excellent soldiers, has significant manufacturing capability and, with a national psyche so badly scarred by WW2, may well be a very positive influence on the world.
I draw absolutely no parallel with the crimes of WW2, but the West has not covered itself in moral glory in the last couple of decades and doesn’t seem to have much conscience about it (at least at leader level).
Ian Stewart
2 years ago
Thanks for this excellent juxtaposition of your own experience with the German change in policy. I really appreciate the additional insight that comes from such parallels being drawn.
aaron david
2 years ago
Excellent piece, Mr. Frasier. High-handed ideals often fall to realpolitik, and all of the pacifism in the world may not stop a bad actor, and the greening might just pay for their ambitions.
George Carty
1 year ago
Aren’t the Germans not so much pacifists as defeatists: not so much because of World War II or Nazism, as because of the trauma at being split for 40 years by the Iron Curtain?
They couldn’t even admit that their involvement in Afghanistan was a war, because in the German imagination “war = thermonuclear war = we’re all dead”.
Judith Downey
2 years ago
Thank you for posting this. I have studied intensively elements of German history from 1914 to 2014. I was deeply engaged with the progress from militarism to pacifism. The move to rearmament has left me utterly shocked. I am feeling very uncomfortable.
Germany has freeloaded their defence on the back of the USA and to a lesser extent Britain for years . They are by far the largest economy in the the EU yet have not paid their 2% to NATO and now face the appalling fact of Russian aggression. Merkel’s policy of appeasement ihas now come home to roost.
Yeah I’m a bit shocked at the reaction there too, for a fairly put comment.
Christopher Chantrill
2 years ago
I just hope that in the fullness of time the Germans will forgive us for the monstrous occupations and humiliations and lootings that we have visited upon them since the end of WWII.
Because, really, after a century of keeping Germany down we are back where we started. We need Germany to do the dirty work keeping the Russians out of Europe.
Oh by the way, Germans, thanks for inventing modern philosophy, modern chemistry, modern physics, modern psychology and I know not what. We owe you.
And let’s not forget German composer Richard Wagner who invented movie music.
As for the second paragraph: are you nearly a century behind, living in 1932? Rather than 2022?
What’s all this modern this and modern that? I’m beginning to think you are referencing New Wave Eighties pop bands. Modern Love? Anyone? The Brits do owe Germany for spending money on British pop music, I’ll say!
“And let’s not forget German composer Richard Wagner who invented movie music!” That sounds like the rallying cry of some excited, homely tech whizz kid in the Big Bang Theory TV sitcom.
On an industrial scale, unique in history, Germany coldly, deliberately with forethought enslaved, tortured, murdered countless hundreds of millions for no other reason than they existed.
They displaced many millions more from their homes and countries. Entire countries, let alone cities, had to be rebuilt because of German attacks.
Modern Germany is only 30 years old. It’s born of two utterly vile regimes.
Yes, thanks for the film music and the rest. But that only makes their 20th century behaviour worse.
‘Oh by the way, Germans, thanks for inventing modern philosophy, modern chemistry, modern physics, modern psychology and I know not what’. I think we could have lived quite happily without any of those. But Bach, Beethoven, Schubert on the other hand…
“Germany is about to have the third largest defence budget in the world, behind only the US and China.”
I admit I’m cynical but I say let’s wait and see how much Germany spends on the military over the coming years when the Ukraine crisis has passed.
Yes, they’ve already given themselves wiggle-room – they talk of starting to meet their NATO commitment from 2024.
The shock and fright caused by Russia’s attack will be long gone and, possibly, so will the current resolution to pull their weight militarily.
Why wouldn’t they? No matter what they do now it will be too late for the current crisis in Ukraine. If Putin gets what he wants they might increase their NATO spending a little bit while still buying Russian fossil fuels. On the other hand if this goes poorly for Putin, then they might claim there was little reason to increase their spending and start focusing on ways to meet their energy goals. Bottom line, they would be stupid to commit one way or another right now.
I’ve heard from German acquaintances that they feel there has been a revolution in German thinking and policy that is very widely felt.
“During my lifetime at least, the Germans have been the conscience of Europe, responding to their defeat in the war and their national shame with a reinvention of their national consciousness.”
And encouraging millions of economic migrants to the continent on the back of their short sightedness, as one recalls Cologne New Years Eve. Their growing consciousness has been a blight in many ways.
Hi Giles – good piece ..but the hundred million is a one off investment ( as I understand it ) that will bring the German armed forces into some sort of reasonable shape . I am unsure of how quickly this money will be spent and how the cash will be raised . Their target is the 2% of overall spending that we ( amongst a few others ) already meet . I guess that 2% could equal the world’s third largest defence budget , but have my doubts .
BTW we have met in 2007 at Putney church for the debates ( with the THTB )
Militarism-Pacifism-Militarism-Pacifism…….
If somebody physically invades your world you become militarist but, of course, this is justified as defending yourself… “It was self-defence Your Honour.”
If somebody physically invades another world, then you can smile and claim Pacifism.
I have a cunning plan to remove all Pacifists. Show propaganda films of the Ukranians killing and eating their pet dogs in order to survive.
Good article but one slight correction. At the end of the Cold War, the Bundeswehr was anything but small: 500k under arms; 12 divisions and 000s of armoured vehicles, and a very competent territorial defence organisation to organise everything from refugees to destruction of infrastructure that might assist the Soviets.
The issue is that the peace dividend the Germans awarded themselves effectively neutered themselves and left them with little choice but to be ‘peaceful’.
The size of the British Army in 2002 is 72,500!
As for 99 Red Balloons, the 1984 hit song, there is a line that goes, “The war machine springs to life. The President is on the line, as 99 red balloons go by” – I’m pretty sure.
Looks like the Chancellor is on the line, now.
When the film, of the fictional book by Frederick Forsyth, The Odessa File was showing in cinemas in 1974, it must have given a push in the minds of the audiences in Britain and America to do with the reality of reflection and reconsideration of WW2 that was taking place in West Germany, among ordinary Germans, in the 1960s (when the film was set) and into the 70s. The British-made film, if shown in West Germany at the time, may have heartened some Germans who felt that the world beyond now knows that good Germans, a new post-war generation, are in abundance and attempting to run things; have neither turned away from unresolved injustices nor neglected responsibilities to do with the legacy of the war. The Odessa File film showed that redemption, if not forgiveness, was very possible. It was just a film. Nevertheless, it was a glimpse, albeit an imagined one, at post-war West Germany (where on-location scenes were shot). Most people in Britain would not have got any other glimpse of Germany, in colour, even on television, in 1974. Three TV channels then, eh? (In the 80s would come, filmed in Germany, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet). The World At War TV series was being broadcast at that time. And the candid interviews with the participants, in colour, were … necessary for the watching nation. Nothing less than necessary!
It’s just that in the old days, when shown on TV a few years later, people watched The Odessa File. It’s a good, exciting movie. Nowadays, the weight of youth don’t watch TV. They watch snippets designed for dunces, and look up naasti torch-lit parades, from the 1930s, in colour, in the palm of their hand. The only chancellor of Germany before Merkel whom this youth I imagine can name is … that boss of Goering, Goebbels and co. They know nothing of the time in between. Nor of the good works of Adenauer, Brandt, Schmidt, Kohl. It’s silly technology and ridiculously tiny tyrannical screens that have probably re-ignited the recent howls by Germans to “do something” to atone for their past. Technology has given youth the worm-like vision of really only seeing the Germany of today and “Germany’s past”: as if its past can only be the period from 1933-45. But in some ways, it’s in part cosmetic, even in Germany, the recent programmes of atonement. The memorials to the Jews of Germany are respectful, poignant, and necessary – but inanimate. What of lively debate? Generally, in mainstream media, in Germany? Like everywhere else in the West, a grounded, candid language to do with actual events, often still within living memory, is dampened down by the overpowering sense of political correctness. The complaints and insensitivities industries are in full swing, aided and abetted by technology, of course. Any candid interviews today with the aged participants of the war are over after a few spoken sentences, and it’s then straight on to the sports or entertainment news, in case anyone should have noticed. In the blizzard of information, the grounded, real past is cast aside or rendered invisible. The memorials that are placed take on a little more tokenistic feel in our modern, unfeeling universe today. Even any recent movies made to do with the war, having been made anywhere in Europe, also take on that tokenistic feel. Unlike yesteryear, your neighbour knows nothing of it. And he or she has probably zero interest in it!
I don’t like the idea of an EU Army. It sounds like one big main army and all its auxiliaries from round and about. It’s good Germany is, however, able to begin to imagine having a better sense of its own security without feeling guilty about it. Like so many young Germans into music in the 70s and 80s, Germans need to look to the future. Right now now, that’s tricky. Maybe the young hip but serious Germans advancing themselves in the 2020s have never heard of 99 Luftballons. We need the 80s back!
Oh yeah, there was that TV show, Deutschland ‘83. Maybe a sign. But the politically correct posturing in the West has gotta go. God has forgiven us our sins already. Nobody believes so, …sigh.
The modern teaching of history in English schools (I can’t speak for Welsh and Scottish schools but I can guess) is WOEFUL. Sorry for shouting but it upsets me very much.
Knowing Germany today, I feel the new defence budget is simply as it should be.
Germany was allowed „a small army after the war“? Under NATO agreements Germany had to maintain a standing army of 500.000 soldiers. The German army is small now, but was not back then.
Correct. The German army had as its core 10 armoured divisions fielding 4500 Leopard 1 and 2 main battle tanks, the linchpin of NATO’s ground forces.
My boss at the time of German reunification was German. He was a very thoughtful man and surprised me by saying something along the lines of “Europe will regret this one day, Germany needs to be kept weak.”
It’s stuck with me. Clearly right now Germany needs to stand up, but there is a part of the German psyche that takes itself very seriously. Would a Germany, capable and willing to be a serious world military player, be a force for good?
It would be just as good as the USA, France or the UK. I doubt anybody would want to walk in the footsteps of You-Know-Who
I tend to agree. Germany has always produced excellent soldiers, has significant manufacturing capability and, with a national psyche so badly scarred by WW2, may well be a very positive influence on the world.
I draw absolutely no parallel with the crimes of WW2, but the West has not covered itself in moral glory in the last couple of decades and doesn’t seem to have much conscience about it (at least at leader level).
Thanks for this excellent juxtaposition of your own experience with the German change in policy. I really appreciate the additional insight that comes from such parallels being drawn.
Excellent piece, Mr. Frasier. High-handed ideals often fall to realpolitik, and all of the pacifism in the world may not stop a bad actor, and the greening might just pay for their ambitions.
Aren’t the Germans not so much pacifists as defeatists: not so much because of World War II or Nazism, as because of the trauma at being split for 40 years by the Iron Curtain?
They couldn’t even admit that their involvement in Afghanistan was a war, because in the German imagination “war = thermonuclear war = we’re all dead”.
Thank you for posting this. I have studied intensively elements of German history from 1914 to 2014. I was deeply engaged with the progress from militarism to pacifism. The move to rearmament has left me utterly shocked. I am feeling very uncomfortable.
I vowel to thee, my country … the love that makes undaunted the final sacrifice.
Germany has freeloaded their defence on the back of the USA and to a lesser extent Britain for years . They are by far the largest economy in the the EU yet have not paid their 2% to NATO and now face the appalling fact of Russian aggression. Merkel’s policy of appeasement ihas now come home to roost.
The progress from grifters to fully paid up Nato member you mean.
Crikey…your expression of discomfort got downvoted six times! The commentariat has become a bizarre group indeed…
Yeah I’m a bit shocked at the reaction there too, for a fairly put comment.
I just hope that in the fullness of time the Germans will forgive us for the monstrous occupations and humiliations and lootings that we have visited upon them since the end of WWII.
Because, really, after a century of keeping Germany down we are back where we started. We need Germany to do the dirty work keeping the Russians out of Europe.
Oh by the way, Germans, thanks for inventing modern philosophy, modern chemistry, modern physics, modern psychology and I know not what. We owe you.
And let’s not forget German composer Richard Wagner who invented movie music.
I don’t understand your first paragraph.
As for the second paragraph: are you nearly a century behind, living in 1932? Rather than 2022?
What’s all this modern this and modern that? I’m beginning to think you are referencing New Wave Eighties pop bands. Modern Love? Anyone? The Brits do owe Germany for spending money on British pop music, I’ll say!
“And let’s not forget German composer Richard Wagner who invented movie music!” That sounds like the rallying cry of some excited, homely tech whizz kid in the Big Bang Theory TV sitcom.
On an industrial scale, unique in history, Germany coldly, deliberately with forethought enslaved, tortured, murdered countless hundreds of millions for no other reason than they existed.
They displaced many millions more from their homes and countries. Entire countries, let alone cities, had to be rebuilt because of German attacks.
Modern Germany is only 30 years old. It’s born of two utterly vile regimes.
Yes, thanks for the film music and the rest. But that only makes their 20th century behaviour worse.
‘Oh by the way, Germans, thanks for inventing modern philosophy, modern chemistry, modern physics, modern psychology and I know not what’.
I think we could have lived quite happily without any of those. But Bach, Beethoven, Schubert on the other hand…